Young and Damned and Fair
by MR Gareth Russell
Written with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this biography of Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is "a stunning achievement" (The Sunday Times, London), and "a masterly work of Tudor history that is engrossing, sympathetic, suspenseful, and illuminating" (Charlotte Gordon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography). On the morning of July 28, 1540, a teenager named Catherine Howard began her reign as queen of an England simmering with rebellion and terrifying uncertainty. Sixteen months later, she would follow her cousin Anne Boleyn to the scaffold, having been convicted of adultery and high treason. The broad outlines of Catherine's career might be familiar, but her story up until now has been incomplete. Unlike previous biographies, which portray her as a naïve victim of an ambitious family, Gareth Russell's "excellent account puts the oft-ignored Catherine in her proper historical context" (Daily Mail, London) and sheds new light on her rise and downfall by showing her in her context, a milieu that includes the aristocrats and, most critically, the servants who surrounded her and who, in the end, conspired against her. By illuminating Catherine's entwined upstairs/downstairs world as well as societal tensions beyond the palace walls, Russell offers a fascinating portrayal of court life in the sixteenth century and a fresh analysis of the forces beyond Catherine's control that led to her execution. Including a forgotten text of Catherine's confession in her own words, color illustrations, family tree, map, and extensive notes, Young and Damned and Fair is "a gripping account of a young woman's future destroyed by forces beyond her control...an important and timely book" (Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire). This account changes our understanding of one of history's most famous women while telling the compelling and very human story of complex individuals attempting to survive in a dangerous age.
Paperback
English
Brand New
Author Biography
Educated at Oxford University and Queen's University, Belfast, Gareth Russell is a historian, novelist, and playwright. He is the author of several books, including The Palace, The Ship of Dreams, Young and Damned and Fair, The Emperors, and Do Let's Have Another Drink. He lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Review
"Young and Damned and Fair is a gripping account of a young woman's future destroyed by forces beyond her control. Gareth Russell moves effortlessly between Catherine Howard's private, inner world and the public life of the Henrician court, providing an unparalleled view into this tragic chapter of Tudor history. This is an important and timely book."--Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire
"In Young and Damned and Fair Gareth Russell marries slick storytelling with a great wealth of learning about sixteenth-century personalities and politics. The result is a book that leads us deep into the nightmarish final years of Henry VIII's reign, wrenching open the intrigues of a poisonous court in a realm seething with discontent. At the heart of it all is the fragile, tragic figure of Catherine Howard, whose awful fate is almost unbearable to watch as it unfolds. This is authoritative Tudor history written with a novelist's lightness of touch. A terrific achievement."--Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets and The Hollow Crown
Review Quote
" Young and Damned and Fair
Excerpt from Book
Young and Damned and Fair Chapter 1 The Hour of Our Death Renounce the thought of greatness, tread on fate, Sigh out a lamentable tale of things Done long ago, and ill done; and when sighs Are wearied, piece up what remains behind With weeping eyes, and hearts that bleed to death. --John Ford, The Lover''s Melancholy (1628) A benefit of being executed was that one avoided any chance of the dreaded mors improvisa, a sudden death by which a Christian soul might be denied the opportunity to make his peace. So when Thomas Cromwell was led out to his death on July 28, 1540,1 he had the comfort of knowing that he had been granted the privilege of preparing to stand in the presence of the Almighty. The day was sweltering, one in a summer so hot and so dry that no rain fell on the kingdom from spring until the end of September, but the bulky hard-bitten man from Putney who had become the King''s most trusted confidant and then his chief minister walked cheerfully towards the scaffold.2 He even called out to members of the crowd and comforted his nervous fellow prisoner Walter, Lord Hungerford, who was condemned to die alongside him for four crimes, all of which carried the death penalty. Lord Hungerford, whose sanity was questionable, had allegedly committed heresy, in appointing as his private chaplain a priest rumored to remain loyal to the Pope; witchcraft, by consorting with various individuals, including one named "Mother Roche," to use necromancy to guess the date of the King''s death; treason, in that both his chaplain''s appointment and the meeting with the witch constituted a crime against the King''s majesty; and sodomy, "the abominable and detestable vice and sin of buggery," made a capital crime in 1534, in going to bed with two of his male servants, men called William Master and Thomas Smith.3 Rumors, fermenting in the baking heat and passed between courtiers, servants, merchants, and diplomats who had nothing to do but sweat and trade in secrets, had already enlarged the scope of Lord Hungerford''s crimes. The French ambassador reported back to Paris that the condemned man had also been guilty of sexually assaulting his own daughter. It was whispered that Hungerford had practiced black magic, violating the laws of Holy Church that prohibited sorcery as a link to the Devil. Others heard that Hungerford''s true crime had been actively plotting the murder of the King.4 None of those charges were ever mentioned in the indictments leveled against Hungerford at his trial, but the man dying alongside him had perfected this tactic of smearing a victim with a confusing m
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